Light tackle Bass fishing

Most of the fishing I do, and have done in the past, revolves around beach fishing – multiplier real, relatively heavy duty rod, thick shock leader and tough terminal tackle.

Having said that, one of my most memorable sessions involves fishing in Shoreham harbour, in a section very close to Hove Lagoon – sadly, it is now fenced off.

The lead-in to this session, which was in the school holidays (so quite a while ago..), involved my cousin Nigel and myself groundbaiting the same spot with bread for several weeks prior to the session – we were targeting Mullet (a 4lb 4oz specimen of which I’d caught from the Norfolk Groyne earlier in the year, on float fished Red Rag. That’s another post – I couldn’t possibly write a fishing blog without mentioning the best ever fish that I’ve caught!).

On this particular occasion we’d plumped for a good supply of Red Rag as bait, and were using a 6ft float rod that I’d recently purchased for about £1 from a car boot sale, along with a rear drag fixed spool reel.

Our tactics involved float fishing the Red in the same spot we’d ground baited, with the drag on the reel slackened right off. From this point the details in my memory are vague, but the general idea is that we caught 3-4 Bass of around the 3lb mark in the session. The feeling when the drag screams as a Bass goes on that initial run is unbelievable. Playing the fish, in much the same way freshwater anglers do, with only light tackle to rely on, and nothing to hinder or weigh down the fish, is something rarely experienced in the course of standard beach fishing, so a great treat once in a while.

Of course, I’m not able to use that specific mark in the course of my new fishing adventures, but the harbour is pretty large, and there are quite a few spots suitable for the same type of fishing.

It was with a summarised version of these memories in the back of my mind, when, in a recent fishing trip with Shuo and Wade, I heard Dave from the Tackle Box at Brighton Marina tell a customer about a 6ft light rod / reel combination that they were selling for £18. I simply had to snap it up – the reel looked decent enough, and it evoked those great memories of warm Summer nights float fishing for Bass. Bring it on!